


Even As A Shadow

by its_pronounced_wiener_slave



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: M/M, Matsuri Zine, time skip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-28 03:46:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19804054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/its_pronounced_wiener_slave/pseuds/its_pronounced_wiener_slave
Summary: Obon is a Buddhist custom to honor the spirits of loved ones who have passed on. It lasts several days in the summer and includes many activities to respect and call upon the dead. Families typically leave a makeshift horse (cucumber) and cow (eggplant) on their window or outside their door; the horse to bring back the ancestor quickly and the cow to return them to the other side slowly. Incense may be lit so that the smoke can lead the way from the spirit world to the world of the living.After a year of surviving the darkness without the Prince of Eos, Ignis decides to give this custom a try.





	Even As A Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was my entry for the Matsuri ignoct fanbook, which centered around festivals (inspired by Japan, but spanning the globe). I wrote it while still living in Osaka, so it's particularly special to me and exists on a very short list of fic I wrote while abroad. My lifestyle and mindset were unique to that time, so I doubt anything I write again (or wrote before) will be quite the same.

**_“Come back. Even as a shadow, even as a dream.”_ **

**_-Euripides_ **

The first time Ignis finds himself lighting incense and sitting it delicately on the window pane, he thinks it perhaps more than a little silly. Particularly so when he retreats to the wicker basket full of fresh vegetables, sat upon the candlelit countertop of the kitchenette. With an indignant sort of snort he lifts each of them individually for inspection until, at long last, he chooses one suitable for the task. 

It’s been just over a year since Noctis disappeared inside the crystal.

One full year of arduous planning and coping with loss, of painstaking work to overcome both daily challenges and nightly grief. One year of _I’d do anything,_ and yet this particular _anything_ still smacks of childish hope and an almost petulant ignorance. That said, here he stands, jamming little wooden legs into a cucumber and deigning to call it a mount.

With a warm coffee in his hands he waits in an armchair not far from the windowsill adorned with both items, unconcerned at the late hour and how it might mix unpleasantly with the drink. The scent of it conflicts with the heady aroma of the incense, the two joining rather offensively. But Ignis isn’t paying much attention. 

Not much attention at all. 

The warm lights of a long Lestallum night glaze his eyes over, a blanket of sorts, lulling him to sleep with his far-fetched hopes despite disturbing visions that couldn’t possibly be distant enough. This time, though, the images turn soft and comforting, almost too real to bear until a familiar voice coaxes his eyes open wide. 

A sound escapes his lips, something like disbelief and relief, when out of the ambient bluish haze of the night emerges the face he’d been seeing in his dreams with reliable regularity since the day he dared to stand fast against both god and prophecy. 

_“Noct,”_ Ignis is able to whisper, both an exclamation and a question, for he can’t bring himself to believe his own eyes.

Noctis stands before him, fully formed and suited smartly from head to toe, not a single dark hair out of place. The youth in his face is still painfully prominent given that Ignis already feels older than he should in just the span of twelve months. It’s heartening, and though he is convinced it’s all merely a very real dream, he jolts in the armchair when Noctis gently lifts the empty coffee mug from his lap. 

“You got jumpy,” he teases with a half smile decorating his mouth, such a precious and long awaited thing. Noct sits the cup on the side table before straightening, the movement smooth and beautiful and _confident._

Ignis is still agape, the air punched out of his lungs as his heart thunders so hard the throbbing can be felt in his ears. Lifting a hand slowly, reaching, drawing Noct’s attention, he has only one question on his jumbled mind.

_“How…?”_

It is entirely ineloquent and insufficient, only barely a complete thought but it thrums through him nonetheless. Surely some vegetation and an old custom can’t claim all the credit. Noctis seems to understand more than his youth betrays, seems to fill the room and effectively change it by sheer will alone. He takes Ignis’ outstretched hand in both of his own, brow knit in the slightest expression of sympathy and perhaps remorse. His warmth, strength, and lingering melancholy transfer straight through, delivering a long sought after calm.

“Thanks to _you._ Like always.”

And all at once, Ignis can breathe again.

* * *

Without doubt Ignis endeavors to repeat the little tradition the following year, too fearful to share the information with others lest he be taken for unstable. He suffers a moment of guilt when he thinks about all the little lights in distant windows every season, fires and burning incense set out by neighbors in the hopes that they’ll be reunited with a loved one. It’s a fruitless task undertaken by many, and Ignis considers the fact that perhaps Noctis, in all his celestial glory and Chosen ability, is the only creature of this world with ties strong enough to the next that laws of nature can be bent and brought to heel. 

However, the ruinous darkness brings daemons and suffering in great many numbers and he and his comrades are kept helplessly busy. As the week for spirits draws nearer, so too does a horde that requires the attention of himself, Prompto, and Gladio, and despite their combined aptitude, they’re pressed further out into the borderlands.

In the absence of privacy, without a safe means home or the tools necessary to call the Chosen King back from limbo, Ignis is forced to let the window of opportunity open and close as he toils ceaselessly in the dark against the very foes which can be blamed for Noct’s absence. He can’t seem to tear his gaze away from the night sky, dappled with stars that he swears number fewer than before the sun fell past the horizon for good. With a twist of the heart he remembers the last time he looked up at that sky alongside a surprisingly interested Prince.

When it’s safe enough to camp, he effortlessly cooks one of Noct’s favorite dishes, his silence a tangible barrier between himself and the others. To his great relief, no one seems to notice the tears when they gloss over his eyes, nor can they taste the salt of the few that fell unexpectedly into the dish. 

* * *

“You’re starting to look like a proper man,” Ignis remarks playfully, his constant despair mercifully lost. It’s so rare that he’s gifted the opportunity to forget it.

He’s sitting cross-legged on the loveseat in his small apartment, Noctis comfortably at his side and draped in his slightly oversized clothes. It’s the second day of the three or sometimes four that this hallowed week tends to provide them, and easily the single hottest day of his entire life. 

Noctis grins when a slender finger traces the ever sharpening cut of his cheekbone, his long lashes on display when he peers down at the hand and grasps the wrist. Pressing a soft kiss into the palm, the staggering blue of his eyes is almost aglow when they find Ignis once more. 

Five years have chiseled the more delicate features into stronger angles, the slightest lines beginning to form here and there. It’s clear that he’s his father’s son, that he’s destined to become irresistibly handsome just as surely as he’s to become overwhelmingly powerful, and Ignis is grateful for even the briefest chance to watch it come to pass in spite of his constant inner battle with anger and grief over the injustice of their shared fate.

“Can’t stay young forever,” Noctis responds, the curve of his lips still boasting a smile. 

Even his voice is beginning to change, ever so slightly.

“That’s odiously true,” Ignis concedes, letting his hand be fiddled with, turned, inspected and kissed again. He sighs as his annual, agonizing sense of contentment grows, the sudden end to it always threateningly nipping at his heels. “I wonder, Noct...if we should tell the others…”

There’s an audible exhale from the rightful king, his longer hair hanging in front of his lips and shifting with the expelled air. Where Ignis wears his guilt and worry plainly, Noctis appears sure footed and unapologetic. He shakes his head _no_ , still clinging to the wrist between his lovely hands. 

“This is how it has to be,” he says quietly, his voice so noble and reassuring that Ignis doesn’t think to ask _why._ Doesn’t even need to know.

He answers with a nod, uncrossing his legs when Noct leans in to press a kiss to the hard line of Ignis’ mouth, previously drawn taut with contemplation. In no more than a few seconds, he is suddenly hopelessly lost.

Noctis idles there for a while, his body always a touch cooler than Ignis remembers, his scent crisp and clean but somehow unfamiliar. It’s as if the other side of the world still clings to his skin and hair, to his very clothing, marking him as forever changed. 

In all likelihood, Ignis doesn’t need to light the incense each day, yet there it swirls in the background, dense and competing with the aroma of an otherworldly being; a precaution against the possibility of losing him prematurely.

“ _You’ll stay this time,”_ Ignis whispers, their noses touching as the warmth of his words bounces back against his own lips. He doesn’t ask or give the sentiment the cadence of a question despite the fact that it is, indeed, a plea. His hands have already twisted into the fabric of Noct’s shirt as if they can communicate the appeal as the command he’d intended it to be.

He already knows the answer.

“Not _this_ time,” Noctis informs him gently, as he’s done each year he’s followed the twisting smoke from the next world to Ignis’ bedside. His voice is almost immediately followed by the softest sob, tumbling ambiently out of Ignis like it had been queued long before they exchanged hushed words.

As abhorrently promised, the following morning finds the sheets empty but for the cruel scent of a handsome king and the curled up frame of his faithful adviser. 

* * *

Mercifully, the years slide by with relative ease compared to the initial upheaval of the sky falling and the Chosen King striding off into the ether. It has meant that, other than the second year, Ignis has been privileged enough to lay eyes on Noctis seven times since. 

For the ninth year the festival for the dead arrives, and people have taken to the old customs of dancing and vending in the streets, ever in search of something to celebrate and derive meaning from. Ignis watches from his little window, the very same one which held his incense and vegetable mounts over the years, and which holds them now just the same. He gives them a quick glance before retreating to bed, wondering how much if any of these little offerings were ever truly useful. Fear and mounting superstition have kept him from daring to quit one or the other.

Customarily, Noctis arrives as Ignis slumbers soundly, rousing him in a botched attempt to join him clandestinely beneath covers. He doesn’t even wake with a start, having been deep in a dream about this very reunion.

“I’ll make coffee,” Ignis asserts groggily, half conscious and automatically animated by daily routine before he’s caught in Noct’s grip when he tries to slip from the sheets.

“You know I don’t need that,” Noctis says with a laugh, though his knitted brow is pleading. 

“Yes, but _I_ do,” Ignis chirps honestly, wanting for aid in remaining conscious as long as he can manage.

“You don’t have to get up. Let’s just stay _here.”_

Ignis eyes the bed, all pretty when decorated with moonlight and a king. Of course, he admits defeat, sinking back onto the mattress with an exhausted sigh. It’s three in the morning. Noctis gathers him up and insists that they sleep, but Ignis is far too anxious about the passage of time to allow it to go to waste.

 _“A beard?”_

“Do you hate it?”

Ignis settles into his pillow and reaches across the space between them, tracing a finger along Noct’s jawline. There’s nothing for it, now. Somehow, somewhere along the line, he became a man. So much can change in a year, and that soft face of nearly a decade ago suddenly leaps to the forefront of his mind.

“It’ll take some getting used to,” Ignis teases, utterly lost in Noct’s eyes even considering the darkness.

“You haven’t aged a day, I swear.”

“Haven’t I? I’m feeling rather ancient, truth be told.”

Noctis smiles and shakes his head noisily against the pillow.

“Why do you say that?” he asks urgently, the smile never leaving his lips, though his tone carries a hint of curiosity and concern.

Ignis falls silent, sinking, shifting his shoulders so that the comforter covers him more completely. 

“Hm. You don’t even have to say anything,” Noctis interjects the quiet, “it’s the prophecy, isn’t it?”

“You needn’t worry over what can’t be changed. It won’t be coming to pass, I’ve already been shown mercy enough.” Ignis believes that wholeheartedly, has allowed it to be a sustaining force in his life since that fateful day Noctis healed his eyes and stepped willfully inside the crystal. That said, the visions of the prophecy imparted upon him still manage to haunt like a latent memory or phantom reality he can’t entirely escape.

“You don’t think you deserve to be free?” 

Noctis asks the question so earnestly that it causes Ignis pain in his chest that’s simply too palpable. As awful as the nightmares can be, they pale in comparison to the very real goodbyes that he’s had to endure over the course of their precious few trysts. He couldn’t bear another.

“I prefer to think of it as a constant reminder of what could happen if we falter. _If I_ falter.”

Noctis peels the blanket down from Ignis’ face with the hint of a grimace, disturbed by the answer.

“It isn’t your _responsibility,_ Iggy…”

A heavy sigh follows as little slits of green peer out from behind half drawn lids. Sleep is creeping back from the sidelines, reclaiming its rightful place.

“I owe you so much more than my eyes,” he whispers to the darkness, as if Noctis is not there at all, perhaps because he’s gotten so accustomed to that truth.

There’s a stillness in the air that only makes the silence that much more loud and imposing. Noct’s heart pounds in his chest with the need to comfort; a desperate desire to urge Ignis to reconsider. He wants more than anything to assure him that there’s no reality in which he’d allow what reoccurs in his dreams to ever come to pass, but the words all scramble to get out at once and ultimately lodge in his throat.

Ignis is the first to fall asleep.

* * *

That final visit lasts nearly three days.

On the third, shortly after Ignis cooks and eats to Noct’s delight, they stand in the window housing the mounts and incense, trying in vain to make time slow down for their own sake. 

The poor cucumber horse is upturned in Noct’s hand, carelessly assessed and scrutinized before being abandoned for the cow. He flashes Ignis a good natured smirk when he realizes he’s been caught, sitting it back down on the windowsill. 

“It's worked so far,” Ignis claims defensively, crossing his arms and leaning a shoulder against the frame of the window, his own grin a bit crooked. “Why test the fates?”

“Don’t you think they’d expect if from us by now?”

They share quiet laughter, but it’s low and lingering. Sad.

“It’s made the passage of time more bearable,” Ignis admits, feeling that aching pain in his heart. “I can’t help but wonder every time I look at you if this moment will be the one where you slip away again. Right before my eyes. Back _there,_ ” he nods out the window as though the gesture has meaning.

“This ought to be the last time, though. The _light,_ ” Noctis stops, presses a palm to his chest and peers down at it, watches as the bluish glow beneath his hand breaks out in fissures between his fingers. When he draws his arm away, it stops all at once. “It waxes full, and all that.”

Ignis looks away simply to hide the expression on his face as it fractures slowly, regarding the faux horse as if he cares about it one iota. He touches it passively, one arm still tucked around his chest almost in defense. 

_This is how he’s saying goodbye_ , he thinks.

No matter how much time they’ve already surmounted and how comparably little remains, he fails to fight the overwhelming grief of inevitable parting. And so, to keep himself from behaving petulantly, he closes his lips and says nothing, appearing petulant all the same. Noctis draws nearer, the sudden warmth of his previously preternaturally cool body beyond that of a normal man. He’s somehow marked as hallowed.

He lays his hand over Ignis’ idle fingers and the little ill fated horse.

“When it’s all over...when we don’t have to _do this_ anymore...we should try it again. _Together._ ”

Ignis’ head snaps up, his brow furrowed, completely perplexed. However, Noctis looks just as sure and vulnerable as can be. The almost apologetic smile he wears takes Ignis aback as well, until the last few words bring much needed clarity.

Noctis laughs beneath his breath, sounding a bit nostalgic and rueful, and it’s devastatingly beautiful.

“I would just...really like to see my dad.”


End file.
